The Trinidad Guardian Newspaper - Douglas Mendeshttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/byline-authors/douglas-mendes
enProsecuting domestic violence without victim co-operationhttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-11-15/prosecuting-domestic-violence-without-victim-co-operation
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_22.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The incidence of victims of domestic violence refusing to prosecute their abusers or withdrawing their co-operation after a charge is laid is not unusual and many times perfectly understandable. But when that happens, should the police continue the prosecution? Can they?</p>
<p>To answer the first question, one must gain some appreciation of why a woman who has been on the receiving end of acts of wanton cruelty could nevertheless persuade herself that it is in her interest to keep her abuser out of jail, or worse to stand by him when the state, and the public, consider his acts of violence to be so serious as to warrant a prosecution without her consent.</p>
<p>There are a number of reasons for such seemingly contradictory and self-harming behaviour, many having to do with the nature of the relationship from which the violence springs. At its most pure, there may be a genuine desire not to inflict harm on someone the victim feels love for, to cause him to lose his job, or fall out of favour with his friends and family. Or it may simply be to protect the children of the union from the indignity of their father being imprisoned. There may be financial considerations as well. A woman who is financially dependent on her partner for a place to live or food on the table would naturally think twice before possibly subjecting herself to the insecurity of her benefactor being put behind bars. Studies show that women are usually financially worse off than their former partners when a marriage or common law relationship goes awry. A successful prosecution could make the victim financially worse off.</p>
<p>Or there may be the more straightforward desire to give the relationship another chance. As usually happens, the abusers appear contrite, begs for forgiveness and promises that it will never happen again. </p>
<p>Then there is the basic fear, born of lack of confidence in the legal system, that her abuser may yet escape conviction and take revenge on her for encouraging the prosecution. Studies show that men who are prosecuted subject their partners to further domestic violence within a relatively short period of time. The feeling that the victim is exposed to greater danger because of the prosecution might also be exacerbated by her experience of the criminal justice system which she perceives accords the accused too many rights. She might feel that the odds are stacked against her. Add to that the sense of loneliness and alienation she might experience when law enforcement officials treat with her insensitively, or do not appear to take her claims seriously. In fact, some prosecutors tacitly discourage victims “by questioning (them) in a manner that conveys blame or disbelief, or by actively outlining the disadvantages of prosecution.” </p>
<p>Overriding all of this is the condition of dependence and helplessness women subjected to frequent battering experience. The paralyzing fear which a battered woman endures robs her of her ability to take decisions for her own betterment. In a variant of the Stockholm syndrome, she finds herself denying or minimising her partner's violent characteristics, focusing on his positive traits and becoming hypersensitive to his needs to the detriment of her own.</p>
<p>All this means that we should be very slow to condemn an abused woman who shows compassion towards her abuser. We should also recognise that battered women need the protection of the State and we should view domestic violence, not as a private affair between otherwise consenting adults, but as an assault on the State itself. Viewed in this light, it is the State, not the abused woman, who is the true complainant in the criminal proceedings and her desire not to proceed should not be a determining factor. In other words, it is the police who should control the initiation and direction of the prosecution, not the victim. Approaching domestic violence in this way sends the clear message to abusers that domestic violence is to be treated institutionally as a serious crime.</p>
<p>In many states in the United States, law enforcement authorities have taken on the responsibility of driving prosecutions in domestic violence cases and have adopted a policy, made known to victims and abusers, that they will not drop a case because the victim decides not to co-operate. In those states, there have been surprising results. Compared to states which do not practice the ‘no-drop’ policy, fewer victims withdraw their co-operation, and some that initially ask that the case be dropped, later change their minds and end up co-operating. There is also some evidence that a more proactive attitude on the part of the police has led to some abusers curtailing their violent ways once they appreciate that the victim is not in control of the case. Some prosecutors report that abusers more readily plead guilty.</p>
<p>But can the prosecution proceed without the victim’s co-operation? Obviously, it would be more difficult to prove a case of abuse without direct evidence from the abused. But it all depends on what other evidence the police have managed to collect. A video recording of the incident or third party eyewitnesses would obviously make the prosecution viable. Short of that, the case may have to be dropped. But the fact that it is to be expected that victims of domestic violence might change their minds should change the way law enforcement officers approach domestic violence cases. They should assume that the victim will eventually change her mind and conduct their investigation to suit. For example, they should be careful to take note of the victims injuries, take photographs if possible, record the state of the premises, and any other corroborating evidence. In other words, they should approach their investigation in much the same way as they investigate a murder, where the victim obviously is not available to say what the perpetrator has done. Adopting such an approach would itself send the signal that law enforcement authorities take domestic violence seriously.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 15 Nov 2015 07:56:45 +0000alexk110325 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesDebunking the misogynistic claptraphttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-10-31/debunking-misogynistic-claptrap
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_21.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I would imagine that from the time cameras became easily available to members of the public, men and women in romantic sexual relationships have found reason to capture their most intimate interactions on film, for posterity sake. No doubt there was a progression from still photographs to moving images once video cameras became more and more affordable. Now everyone carries a camera and a video recorder in their pocket or handbag, and it is oh so easy to whip out a smartphone and immortalise the moment.</p>
<p>Sexual partners obviously get great titillation from reliving their past, mutual, sexual exploits on film. That is their business, not mine. Modern technology also allows them to send nude photographs and videos to each other via Instagram, Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, and what have you. If they do so, that is their business, not ours.</p>
<p>The difference between the digital technology available today and the now primitive uni-dimensional cameras, is that digital photographs and videos can be disseminated to countless numbers of people at the tap of a smartphone command, even before the sender has the opportunity to think through the enormity of what he is about to do. Once sent, it can then be relayed to multiple recipients and websites in a nanosecond. And before you know it, prying eyes across the globe are viewing images of your private self that you would prefer to be reserved for your select few. </p>
<p>Young people appear to be very fond of posting nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves. Surveys in the United States have it that 40 per cent of teenagers have posted nude pictures at one point in time of the other, and they apparently don’t think that there is anything particularly unusual or morally questionable about that. Which is probably not so surprising given the prevalence in western culture of music videos with scantily clad celebrities, near-nude selfies by everyone on social media sites, and the easy access to free hard-core pornography on the internet. That culture too may have contributed to the ease with which sexual partners succumb to the temptation to exchange nude pictures and videos.</p>
<p>And it is obviously a dangerous practice. Paedophiles troll the internet inveigling young teens to share nude photographs. Juvenile boys brag to each other about the size of their collection of revealing pictures of their female school friends. And more topically, jilted lovers disseminate their once private and intimate exchanges with their former girlfriends in what has now come to be known as revenge porn. There is even a revenge porn website on which the owner, for profit, provides a platform for the cuckold or the romantically disappointed to post his former lover's compromising pictures. As long as women are foolish enough to allow themselves to be photographed in the nude, he says, he intends to make money off of it. It is good thing that this Government will soon bring back cybercrime legislation to Parliament, shorn, it is hoped, of its previous anti-free press provisions.</p>
<p>This week, Justice Frank Rampersad awarded damages in the handsome sum of$150,000 to a young woman whose former boyfriend, a cricketing star, forwarded pictures he took of her performing fellatio on him and nude photographs she had sexted to him, without her permission. The judge found that this breached her right of confidentiality.</p>
<p>This was not the first occasion on which revenge porn has made the airwaves in T&amp;T. But it is the first time that it has been punished in a local court of law, to my knowledge. Even so, I must say that I was taken aback by the responses which I have heard from people who I thought would know better. How is it so difficult to understand that if your girlfriend allows you to photograph her naked or she sends intimate pictures of herself to you, she intends them for your viewing only, and it is simply wrong to let anyone else see it without her permission. That scenario is so vastly different from someone who bares herself on a public beach and is photographed. </p>
<p>Yet still, I was shocked to hear one regular radio commentator chide the victim for taking her case to court simply because, he says, she must have known that in this day and age of instant digital communication, what happens in the privacy of her bedroom would find its way in the public domain should she deign to end her relationship with her boyfriend. The fault is not the man's who deliberately sets out to injure her, but hers for not anticipating that her erstwhile friend would one day seek his revenge. This is the same misogynistic claptrap that you hear, that a woman who dresses herself seductively gets what she is looking for if she is raped. Except, of course, when the woman is your mother, daughter or sister. </p>
<p>It is disheartening that so many contributors to social media fora, distracted by the fact that the victim was having an affair with a man who had a partner, and mesmerised by her surname, thought that Ms Ho got what she deserved. They were apparently unimpressed by the fact that Mr Simmons admitted under cross-examination that he had taken the revealing photos because he "wanted to hold it over her head" or that the judge found that he had disseminated them intending to cause her "upset, embarrassment and distress."</p>
<p>What men and women do consensually in the privacy of their bedroom is nobody's business. Yes, we should encourage young women to be more circumspect about who they share their intimacies with, or at all. And instead of blaming the victims of revenge porn, maybe we should let young men know how real men should behave. </p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 01 Nov 2015 03:16:03 +0000alexk109786 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesNo place for bigotry, verbal abuse in the Househttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-10-18/no-place-bigotry-verbal-abuse-house
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_20.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I’m shaking my head. The PNM invited members of the public to reject the People’s Partnership in the last election in part because of the way they abused their control over parliamentary proceedings. That abuse was evident in the outrageous accusations of rape made against the Leader of the Opposition personally, and the even more astonishingly tactless allegation that Dr Rowley’s deceased mother had been raped. It was also evident in the suspension of the Leader of the Opposition from the House, an event which signalled the launch of the Partnership’s election campaign strategy of vilifying Dr Rowley. Nothing is objectionable about such a campaign in principle, although one can take exception to its content. The objection is to using parliamentary powers the electorate has entrusted you with in aid of a political party vying to return to power. There is a close analogy here with the US Republican party's admitted use of the House Select Committee on Benghazi to smear Hilary Clinton and stall her momentum in her presidential bid.</p>
<p>It is unusual in this region, in the absence of dire economic circumstances, that a party in power is not given an extension of its tenure to continue the work it had begun in its first term. The result of our last election can therefore only be interpreted as rejection of a certain type of politics characterised by highhandedness, arrogance, favouritism, cronyism and, of course, the stench of corruption. </p>
<p>So, I’m shaking my head because I find it incredible that so early in this Parliament’s life the leader of government business and a minister could be displaying such blatant insensitivity to the public's mood in their taunting of the Opposition that their government is in charge.</p>
<p>At one level, I suppose the assertion of control over parliamentary proceedings is an understandable human reaction to a period of abuse by those now in opposition. I say, get over it. The people of T&amp;T have spoken. They demand a different type of politics. We do not need to be reminded that we have put another party in charge of the legislature. We want power to be exercised with dignity and grace, not with vengeance and spite.</p>
<p>Having said that, there is clearly nothing wrong with providing the population with hitherto unknown evidence of squandermania and nepotism, as long as such evidence is presented fairly. Indeed, it is the Government's duty on representatives of the people to bring such matters to light.</p>
<p>Which brings me to the way our parliamentarians converse with each other. It is obviously unacceptable to mock a MP about his mannerisms or sexuality, and I am glad to see an apology was issued. It is also obviously crass in the extreme for one parliamentary representative to be shouting to another across the aisle to “shut his stinking mouth.” Even “shut up” or “be quiet” might be an excusable overreaction in the spur of the moment. But from whence does this reference to a fellow parliamentarian’s “stinking mouth” emanate? Dr Moonilal gave any apology of sorts, describing his remark as part of the normal cut and thrust of parliamentary debates, an example of the picong that is customarily exchanged. Really? How revealing!</p>
<p>No doubt, politics is not for the faint of heart or the prude, and harsh criticism of each other’s positions is to be expected. But there is no place for bigotry and verbal abuse in the House, or anywhere for that matter. Why not try the witticisms or the double entendres of the past masters of political repartee. Make debate in the House a master class in the art of public speaking. More than everything, focus on issues and not personalities. Present strong, incisive and insightful arguments. How can the failure of the Prime Minister to rise to object to an accusation by Dr Moonilal that he flew in a helicopter to Tobago constitute justification for repeating what it appears Dr Moonilal now accepts as a false statement?</p>
<p>Leadership on both sides is required to raise the level of debate in Parliament and effect a change in the way parliamentary affairs are conducted. Parliamentarians must appreciate that it is only die-hard supporters who will defend the unbecoming behaviour to which we have been hitherto accustomed. And even die-hard supporters are fed-up.</p>
<p>There is a role here for the Speaker and the President of the Senate. In this regard, apart from her rough treatment of Dr Tewarie, I thought the Speaker has been setting the right tone, intervening to ask members to be quiet during presentations of fellow members and reminding members of the conduct which the standing orders require of them. She needs to enforce the rules, ensuring always that this is done fairly and with restraint. There is still freedom of speech in Parliament. The trick is to ensure that it is not abused.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 18 Oct 2015 04:59:18 +0000alexk109252 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesReparations: a moral imperativehttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-10-11/reparations-moral-imperative
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_19.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Imagine a community tucked away in the splendid seclusion of the northern range, engaged in some profit-making enterprise, it really doesn’t matter what. With all such enterprises, there is some sort of hierarchical structure, with mangers at the top and workers below them receiving daily instructions. But imagine that the workers are not paid, they are prevented by force from leaving the compound, they are regularly and arbitrarily whipped and made to suffer unspeakable indignities, and the women and girl children are sexually abused by the owners. Imagine that these atrocities have gone on for years, even as the owners and managers of this horrendous enterprise hobnob with decent citizens.</p>
<p>No one would doubt that, once these enslaved workers are emancipated, they would be entitled to claim compensation from their tormentors for their wages lost, their freedom taken away, their bodies battered and abused, their mental states permanently scarred. They may even be entitled to have their exploiters disgorge their ill-gotten profits. </p>
<p>All of this would be possible today because there are laws protecting us from unlawful imprisonment, assault and rape, and which do not allow anyone to be unjustly enriched. In short, slavery is illegal. We call it compensation for tortious wrongs today. The word 'reparations' is also suitable and indeed is the word used in international human rights to describe what victims of human rights abuses are entitled to.</p>
<p>There were of course no such remedies available to our ancestors during slavery or even after emancipation. Slavery was legal and when it was abolished, it was not abolished retroactively to create any right to compensation for the unpaid labour and broken bodies, minds and spirits which former slaves were made to endure.</p>
<p>Slavery was legal in domestic law, despite the fact that the majority of the population was enslaved, because the minority slave owners made the laws and had the wherewithal to enforce them with extreme violence where necessary. Slavery was also legal in international law because, again, international law was determined by the consensus among nations who either operated or participated in the slave trade or benefited from it.</p>
<p>When slavery was eventually abolished, the logic of the legal system made it imperative, it seems, that slave owners be compensated for the property that they were being deprived of as a consequence of the change in the law, much as any landowner would be compensated today for any property acquired by the state for public purposes. There are some historical reports of former slaves in the United States being given pieces of land after abolition, but that was not by way of compensation, surely, for past wrongs.</p>
<p>So what about reparations today? Naturally, to my mind, the case for reparations is not built entirely on the basis of individual claims for compensation by the ancestors of former slaves, although that is a part of it. The obvious difficulties involved in such a venture would immediately stymie that path to reparations. Nor can the case for reparation be mounted entirely on the fact that slave owners were compensated for the loss of their property. That historical fact does, however, serve to feed the moral argument for reparations. From the perspective of a modern world incapable of understanding today how Christian civilisation managed to tolerate the barbarity and brutality of the slave trade for so long, it is incomprehensible that the question of reparation did not arise then. Surely, the wrong having been recognised, the now self-confessed perpetrators of crimes against humanity ought to have sought tangible ways to purge themselves of their sins.</p>
<p>For me, the case for reparations today is made irresistible because of the indisputable historical fact that former slave owning nations enriched themselves literally on the backs of a mass of humanity whose humanness was only belatedly acknowledged. Each such country is sitting on a pot of gold which they obtained immorally, and illegally, when viewed through the eyes of the modern world. The question for all of us is whether our former colonial masters should be required to unburden themselves of the wealth they now enjoy in part as a direct result of crimes committed in the past. To my mind, it is unconscionable to say, as Prime Minister Cameron would have us do, “let’s move on,” “let’s look to the future.” I find it impossible to do so knowing that, at present, former slave owning countries are enjoying superior standards of living precisely because of the brutalities our ancestors were made to endure. There must be a reckoning.</p>
<p>The question, who must be a reckoned with, is easier to answer. Clearly it is the nations who continue to feel the effects of slavery today.</p>
<p>The Caricom Reparations Commission has identified six broad aspects of the Caribbean condition which have resulted from the crimes against humanity committed by former slave owning countries and which should be the focus of the debate on reparations. Among them are the state of illiteracy in which the descendants of African slaves were left at the end of colonial rule; the psychological trauma of being classified as non-human which continued long after slavery was abolished and manifests itself today in persistent racists attitudes; and the scientific and technological backwardness in which countries of the region were left because the imposition of the system of slavery necessarily precluded early involvement in any manufacturing and industrial processes locally, but which were nevertheless carried out on the continent, fuelled by the wealth which slavery provided.</p>
<p>The connection between slavery and the inequality in development between former colonies and former colonial masters is palpable. A historical debt is owed. Mr Cameron must atone.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 11 Oct 2015 07:44:39 +0000alexk108948 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesPope Francis and property taxhttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-10-04/pope-francis-and-property-tax
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_18.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Pope Francis does not mince his words when it comes to the assignment of responsibility for the degradation of the environment and its impact on the poor and underprivileged, and the abject failure of current economic arrangements to foster any semblance of equality. </p>
<p>It is the overconsumption by richer countries of the earth’s limited natural resources which is responsible ultimately for climate change. The dramatic rise in sea levels which is expected to manifest itself in mid-century will impact poorer countries and the poor disproportionately. So that those who are the least responsible for the earth's environmental tumult are destined to suffer most from its effects.</p>
<p>And it is the greed which the capitalist system nurtures and at the same time feeds on which is responsible for the ever widening gap between rich and poor nations, between the privileged few and the swarming mass of the economically deprived.</p>
<p>The Pope delivers his message with humility and palpable compassion. He walks with kings but prefers the common touch. All of this was on full display on his recent visit to the United States where, it is an understatement to say, he is not the favourite of the conservative Republican Party. His perceived attacks on the capitalist system were not appreciated at all by the majority party in the congress. Not sure what Speaker Boehner was all teary-eyed about. Maybe he knew that that event was his swansong, the last significant public event he would preside over before his retirement. His tearfulness surely did not spring from regret that the policies he had pursued all his political life had failed to score even a dent in poverty levels in his own country, but quite the opposite had made matters worse. After all, as JK Galbraith once commented: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”</p>
<p>We have just emerged from a period of wanton selfishness, if not criminality, in which state resources were showered on an undeserving few. But that is more symptom than cause of the equality manifest in the poverty and inequality which seems to be a permanent blot on our oil-and-gas-rich nation. Profligacy abounds. It is evident in the mansions, the multi-million-dollar high-rise apartments, and the gas-guzzling over-sized cars that proliferate on our nation's highways and byways. We have our own one per cent accounting for a disproportionate portion of the nation's collective wealth. At the same time, we contend on a daily basis with the homeless, the under-educated, communities in distress, and the resultant, ever-present and ever-resistant criminal element.</p>
<p>The Prime Minister has been lamenting our past excesses and talking about reigning in state expenditure. Hopefully this is not just because the reality of our limited and dwindling national resources is sinking in. Hopefully this is the beginning of a rethinking of our national priorities.</p>
<p>My friends will have heard me complain repeatedly of the waste of the billions of dollars on the waterfront development, the government campus which is as yet unused, the recurring emphasis on mega-projects for their own sake, it would appear, when just a few miles away, in plain view, are communities where single mothers and their lost sons struggle with daily living. Billions of dollars spent to house government ministries, while the communities which incubate and replicate the criminal element are left to fend for themselves. More police enforcement, less bail and better prisons just deal with the symptoms of a broken system. To lower the crime rate, the problem has to be dealt with at its source. Hopefully we will hear about a sea change in our priorities in the upcoming budget.</p>
<p>Hopefully we will also hear about renewed proposals for the reform of the property tax system. In Canada, property tax, which is not insignificant, is used to provide many of the local services we take for granted: garbage collection, road repair, utilities, even schools. The higher the value of your property, the more tax you pay. In T&amp;T, property tax is a joke. There is very little difference between what you pay for your modest dwelling and what is paid for a multi-bedroom mansion in Valsayn. In a real sense, the mass of homeowners subsidise the privileged few living way beyond what is humanly necessary.</p>
<p>But making property tax more equitable serves another important purpose. A person’s wealth is on display in the property he or she owns. Taxing it at its proper value forces everyone to make their own proportionate contribution to the nation’s treasury. Unlike income, real estate cannot be hidden. Those who cheat on their taxes, or make use of creative methods to avoid paying tax, cannot escape the Inland Revenue when it comes to the properties they simply cannot camouflage.</p>
<p>This is why it mystified me that the property tax proposals advanced by the previous PNM regime were greeted with such opposition from progressive forces in T&amp;T. Property tax is a method of redistributing wealth and making everyone pay their fair share. It contributes to the narrowing of the gap between rich and poor. Maybe this PNM Government will try again. I’m sure Pope Francis would approve.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 04 Oct 2015 05:49:54 +0000alexk108686 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesIn defence of independent senatorshttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-09-27/defence-independent-senators
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_17.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The Senate comprises 31 people, 16 of whom are selected by the Prime Minister, six by the Leader of the Opposition, and nine by the President in his own discretion. To be qualified to be appointed to the Senate, a person must be a citizen of T&amp;T and aged 25 or above. </p>
<p>A person is disqualified if he or she is a citizen of another country, is a member of the House of Representatives, is bankrupt, mentally ill, under sentence of death, serving a term of imprisonment exceeding 12 months, convicted of an offence relating to an election or not qualified to be registered as an elector in parliamentary elections. </p>
<p>These qualifications and disqualifications apply to all senators equally. In relation to those senators selected by the President, the only limitation provided for under the Constitution is that they must be “outstanding persons” belonging to “economic or social or community organisations and other major fields of endeavour.” </p>
<p>There is prohibition against the President's senators being members of or affiliated to a political party, whether of the Government or the Opposition, far less that he or she should have no political preference or leanings. </p>
<p>It is also significant that the nine senators selected by the President are not referred to in the Constitution as “Independent Senators,” nor are they required by the Constitution to be “independent”, whatever meaning one may wish to put on that word.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, we expect the President's senators to act independently, by which we mean that they are expected to make their contributions in the Senate and to cast their votes in accordance with what they individually consider to be the right thing to do, and not because of some predetermined predilection for either the Government or the Opposition. </p>
<p>He or she is not to be another mouthpiece or conduit of any of the contending political parties in Parliament. Although not finding any expression in the Constitution, one might say that this is one of its unwritten principles.</p>
<p>This does not mean that independent senators are not expected to have developed views which happen to coincide with the thinking of the Government or the Opposition. Neither does it mean that they are not to favour one party over another in an election. You do not relinquish your constitutional right to your own political views because you sit on the independent Senate benches. It does mean that they are expected to bring to bear on proceedings in Parliament the wealth of their own personal and professional experiences and to approach each issue they are called upon grapple with, with the sole goal of furthering the public interest and not that of the political party they might tend to prefer for the time being. And it does mean that there must be occasions when they will part company with their party of choice when their conscience tells them to do so. In that regard, they are unlike senators appointed by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition who are expected to tow the party line. </p>
<p>So does that mean that an independent senator who accepts an appointment to a state board or enterprise has somehow betrayed his or her independence as a senator or has provided proof that she was not independent after all during her term in office? The Leader of the Opposition seems to think so. </p>
<p>She appears to believe that anyone who heeds the call to serve the public in an official capacity must be a diehard supporter of the ruling party. </p>
<p>Unwittingly, she has opened a window to her philosophy of governance. It is not a pretty sight. It is a philosophy borne of the belief that the spoils of an election are for the ruling party's supporters only. It is only devotees of the rising sun who are to be appointed to state boards, whether they are qualified or not. It is only lawyers who are loyal to the Peoples Partnership who are to be given state briefs. </p>
<p>So ingrained is this world view in her psyche, so natural does it appear to her that the state's largesse is to be reserved for her party's lackeys, that she projects her value system onto all others. </p>
<p>So, to her way of thinking, Helen Drayton could not possibly have been independent after all because she has now accepted the Prime Minister's invitation to chair CNMG's Board. </p>
<p>This is not simply an approach to governance which is borderline unconstitutional, it is also short sighted and counterproductive. Restricting the pool of talent from which a government will select those who will serve on state boards or would otherwise benefit from state contracts to party supporters only, punishes those who choose to exercise their constitutional right to a political view different to the ruling party, and deprives the Government potentially of better qualified patriots willing to assist in running the country. It is a philosophy of governance destined to divide, not unite, to alienate, not integrate.</p>
<p>When the Government changed in 2010, there was a full-scale campaign launched to rid the state sector of every and anyone perceived to be sympathetic to the PNM. Many people spoke openly of ethnic cleansing. This Government must not respond in kind. The Prime Minster has pledged to govern for all Trinbagonians. Let’s hold him to that promise. Helen Drayton's appointment is a good start.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 27 Sep 2015 05:40:27 +0000alexk108411 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesMonitoring the re-election campaignhttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-08-30/monitoring-re-election-campaign
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_16.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A recent Trinidad Guardian report estimated that, over a six-day period, the People’s Partnership had outspent the PNM in traditional media advertising by six to one. Of the estimated $5 million in advertising expenditure, the PP was responsible for $4.3 million, the PNM a meager $700,000. In terms of actual numbers, the PP had placed over 100 newspaper advertisements, while the PNM had placed a paltry 17. That is quite an outrageous disparity. </p>
<p>Political analysts Winford James and Maukesh Basdeo both thought that the PP’s spending was on the high side, but nevertheless would not charaterise it as unusual given that the party in power normally has greater access to campaign finance. Yes, but to the tune of six to one?</p>
<p>Mr Basdeo’s explanation for the PP’s disproportionate spending was rather anodyne. It was either, the tautological, that the PP was able to raise more funds or, the circular, that financiers are “more comfortable supporting the party in power.” </p>
<p>Mr James was far less circumspect. One explanation for the PP’s veritable cornucopia is the contributions undoubtedly made by contractors in receipt of state largesse. According to Mr James, the “normal contributions of members” could not by itself account for the PP’s war chest bursting at its seams. “The level of spending is just too high for that to be so.” </p>
<p>I share Mr James’ misgivings. The share magnitude of the assumed contributions raises the concern that something sinister is at play, that in fact taxpayers money has been indirectly funneled from the state’s coffers, through state contractors, and back into the PP’s political war chest. </p>
<p>I find it disappointing that the Third Force, which has made campaign finance reform one of its bellwethers of political support, has unconditionally endorsed the PP without even asking where its campaign contributions are coming from, and in what amounts. </p>
<p>Mr James also averted to the phenomenon of what he called “the comingling of state and party funds during election periods.” This occurs when government ministries use state funds to advertise the achievements of the outgoing government, a transparent ploy which doubles as a not so subtle invitation to return the authors of such alleged successes to power. </p>
<p>Mr James thinks that, in this regard, there is a “blurring” of the line separating propriety from notoriety. That may be so in some instances and in a different context. For my part, I have no doubt that the line has been crossed time and again. </p>
<p>An incumbent party is unquestionably entitled to boast about its accomplishments, or at the very least to defend its record from attack by those seeking to unseat it. It is therefore clearly unobjectionable for the Minister of Housing to proudly trumpet the delivery of so many housing units to members of the public. </p>
<p>Where the line may have been crossed, however, is if, as is suspected, the distribution of much needed housing was deliberately delayed to coincide with the election season, or, which is more likely, the actual timing of the roll-out of 100 units every week right up to the eve of the election was engineered as an election gimmick. </p>
<p>It is bad enough that the Minster’s control over the timing of the delivery of public housing is put at the disposal of his political party’s campaign strategy, it is even worse that each event is accompanied by an advertisement, paid for out of public funds, replete with photographs of the smiling minister “bringing the dreams of a nation closer to home.” One such advertisement appeared in the Guardian on August 21 concerning a roll-out which occurred on August 15. And just in case you might have thought that this was an ordinary, if ill-timed notification of a government event, well how do you explain the repeat of the same advertisement two days later other than as a crass attempt at political advertisement? </p>
<p>As it happened, on August 21 there also appeared a two-page advertisement heralding the opening of the Children’s Hospital in Couva. This is an important milestone by any measure and one which was deserving of public notification, no matter when it occurred. It is one of the Prime Minister’s signature projects and it was therefore not in the least bothersome that the advertisement contained obviously staged photographs of her at the official opening ceremony. But the temptation to misuse a national event for narrow partisan gain was obviously too much for the copywriter who could not resist the closing refrain: “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.”</p>
<p>And if you were in any doubt as to whether all of this is not part of a coordinated plan, it should be clear that from now until you cast your vote, we will be bombarded on a daily basis with similar, thinly disguised partisan political advertisements, all financed with hard-earned taxpayers money. Thus, on August 22 and 23, the Ministry of Tertiary Education placed full page ads about the placement of graduates of the OJT Programme; on August 23 and 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed us that T&amp;T had applied to host the Arms Trade Treaty Secretariat, an application which had been made since July 2013; on August 26, again apropos of nothing in particular, the Ministry of Local Government reminded us that for the last five years it had been faithful to the Peoples Partnership’s 2010 manifesto on local government; and on August 27 (the date this column is being written), the Ministry of Education extolled the Prime Minister’s vision for education and the efforts it had made to fulfill her mandate. The only thing missing is the clarion call: VOTE PP.</p>
<p>Any future campaign finance reform legislation must address the misuse of public funds to finance the re-election campaign of an incumbent government.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 30 Aug 2015 08:08:16 +0000alexk107281 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesConnecticut and the death penaltyhttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-08-23/connecticut-and-death-penalty
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_15.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>On August 25, 2015, a majority of the Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut ruled that the death penalty was so out of step with contemporary standards of decency as to violate that state’s constitutional ban on excessive and disproportionate punishment.</p>
<p>The ruling will not make much of a difference to the criminal justice system in Connecticut. Only one execution had been carried out in the State in the last 55 years and the State Legislature in 2012 had abolished the death penalty for all crimes committed after the law had been brought into force. That left the death penalty already imposed on prisoners found guilty of murder intact. There were 12 such prisoners in all. The court’s ruling accordingly was of real, immediate significance to only a small number of people. </p>
<p>The importance of the decision to my mind lies in the more general statements of principle the judges permitted themselves to declare and the chronicling of the slow demise of the death penalty both in the United States and internationally. </p>
<p>All told, 98 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. In 1977, only 16 countries had removed the penalty from its law books. </p>
<p>When long standing abstention from carrying out executions is factored in, 140 countries have effectively renounced the death penalty, making both the United States and Commonwealth Caribbean States notorious holdouts.</p>
<p>In the United States, a total of 19 states and the District of Columbia no longer permit the imposition of new capital sentences, which leaves a majority which still keep the punishment on their books. But what is telling is not so much the number of states which have forsaken death as a punishment, but “the consistency of the direction of change.”</p>
<p>The total number of executions carried out across the nation had fallen by more than 60 per cent since 1999. </p>
<p>As for the number of penalties imposed, that dropped to new low of 73 in 2014, down from more than 300 annually in the mid-1990s. </p>
<p>Reflecting the caprice and race bias of the administration of criminal justice of the approximately 1,400 executions carried out nationwide since 1976, the 13 states of the former southern confederacy carried out more than 75 per cent of them. </p>
<p>It is not surprising that states which fought a civil war to maintain the barbarism of slavery would be the leaders in the promotion of a form of punishment disproportionately imposed and executed on black Americans.</p>
<p>It is statistics like that which has hastened the unacceptability of the death penalty. For as long as records have been available, it is a fact that “the death penalty has been imposed disproportionately on those whom society has marginalised socially, politically, and economically: people of color, the poor and uneducated, and unpopular immigrant and ethnic groups.” </p>
<p>As the Court lamented: “It always has been easier for us to execute those we see as inferior or less intrinsically worthy.”</p>
<p>There have also been significant shifts in the tolerance which participants in the criminal justice system have for the penalty. </p>
<p>During the debates in the Connecticut legislature, nearly every legislator stated that he or she had come to oppose capital punishment “as a matter of conscience or principle,” based either on their conclusion that life imprisonment without the possibility of release is a more appropriate punishment, or the unacceptable “possibility that the state might mistakenly execute an innocent person,” or that capital punishment was “incurably arbitrary and discriminatory.”</p>
<p>Trends in the imposition of the death penalty by juries also tell their own tale. As noted, the number of death sentences imposed has fallen dramatically over time, even as public opinion polls continue to show strong public support for retention. </p>
<p>But the result of jury trials is probably a better “barometer of social mores.” It is no doubt easy for members of the public to call for the ultimate penalty of death when not faced with a live case. </p>
<p>But, “the infrequency of its actual application suggests that among those persons called (on) to actually impose or carry out the death penalty it is being repudiated with ever increasing frequency.”</p>
<p>There is an important parallel here in the Caribbean. Public support for the death penalty has continued to be robust. But since judges became authorised in the Bahamas, Belize, Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean to determine whether the death penalty was the appropriate sentence in any given case, not one death sentence has been imposed, or, if imposed by the trial judge, survived on appeal.</p>
<p>On the basis of these trends, the Connecticut Court concluded that capital punishment in Connecticut “no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and, therefore, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”</p>
<p>The court also found that the death penalty had no penological justification. It obviously provided the perpetrator with no opportunity of rehabilitation. </p>
<p>There was no evidence that it deterred others from committing murder. Life imprisonment was just as effective in containing the offender and expressing outrage at the crime he had committed and it alone could effect his rehabilitation. Any retributive effect it might have had was outweighed by the increasingly frequent “intolerable event” of the “execution of legally and factually innocent persons,” and its disproportionate imposition on the weak and the marginalised.</p>
<p>Absent any such justification, the court found, the death sentence was “nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering, and hence an unconstitutional punishment.”</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 23 Aug 2015 13:16:43 +0000alexk107000 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesAccounting for Section 34http://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-08-16/accounting-section-34
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_14.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>On August 6, three years ago, the former minister of justice put a note before Cabinet recommending that one of the provisions of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act be brought immediately into force, ahead of all the other provisions. That provision was the now infamous Section 34 which granted amnesty to anyone accused of an offence which had been committed more than ten years previously. </p>
<p>In principle, there is nothing inherently wrong with a measure like that. All modern constitutions guarantee a right to a speedy trial and, by any measure, a ten-year delay in the commencement or progress of a criminal prosecution is presumptively dilatory. A broad amnesty could also contribute to a significant reduction in the backlog of criminal cases clogging up the criminal justice system. </p>
<p>As much as it is desirable to rid the system of long outstanding cases, however, care must nevertheless be taken to ensure that an otherwise well-meaning measure does not contribute to a culture of impunity. </p>
<p>That is why it was also wise policy to exempt more serious offences, such as murder and rape, from those to which the amnesty applied. </p>
<p>The problem with Section 34 was that it did not exempt corruption offences from its purview as well. Nor did it disentitle those accused who had managed to string out their prosecutions past the ten-year deadline with a number of time-wasting collateral legal proceedings. </p>
<p>It was those two gaping loopholes which permitted Steve Ferguson and Ishwar Galbaransingh to become eligible to have their bid-rigging charges dismissed by the High Court. </p>
<p>And it was the realisation that our most notorious campaign financiers had been thrown a life line that produced the searing outrage which spilled over into public marches, eventually forcing the firing of the minister of justice and the outright repeal of Section 34. </p>
<p>Public disquiet over Section 34 has been fuelled for the most part by the suspicion that the passage and early promulgation of the amnesty clause was payback for financial assistance given to win the 2010 election. </p>
<p>That disquiet was recently rekindled by Jack Warner’s recounting of meetings where money changed hands. </p>
<p>What has not been the subject of the same level of public scrutiny, but is no less deserving of condemnation, is the decision made by the former attorney general to not appeal the ruling by Justice Boodoosingh preventing Ferguson and Galbaransingh’s extradition to the United States to face charges for which their alleged accomplices had already pleaded guilty and had either served or were serving prison terms.</p>
<p>To understand the significance of that decision, it is necessary to set the scene. </p>
<p>Ferguson and Galbaransingh had already lost all of their legal challenges to their extradition. All that was left was for the AG to decide whether he should make the final order for their return. Decisions of that nature are made pursuant to a treaty entered into between T&amp;T and the United States under which we have agreed to extradite citizens accused of offences in the US. Crime has become international. It knows no borders. </p>
<p>As such, extradition is an important tool in the fight against transnational criminal activity. In this instance, the AG, on advice from an extradition expert, decided to sign the order sending Ferguson and Galbarabsingh to the US. But, on November 7, 2011, Justice Boodoosingh ruled that the AG had erred, primarily because Ferguson and Galbaransingh were being prosecuted for the same underlying offences here in T&amp;T. We should hesitate long before abdicating our sovereign right to punish criminal conduct committed substantially in our own territory. </p>
<p>Crucially, however, implicit in Justice Boodoosingh’s reasoning was that it would have been different if they could not or were not being tried here. </p>
<p>What happened next is that Section 34 was passed by the House of Representatives on November 18, 2011, and by the Senate on November 29, 2011, with some crucial amendments. Senator Prescott drew specific attention during his contribution to the fact that people being prosecuted for fraud would be handed a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card once the law came into force. </p>
<p>So the result was that the legal terrain in which the extradition proceedings had been conducted had shifted dramatically. Whereas Justice Boodoosingh had based his judgment on the fact that Ferguson and Galbaransingh were being prosecuted locally, the legislature had now in effect terminated the local proceedings. </p>
<p>The attorney general could now appeal the judgment and introduce fresh evidence, not then known to the judge, so that the Court of Appeal could properly assess the extradition challenge.</p>
<p>Instead, on December 21, 2011, the AG announced that he would not appeal and gave as his reasons for so deciding that, essentially, Ferguson and Galbaransingh would continue to be prosecuted locally.</p>
<p>What do we make of that? </p>
<p>A denial of an extradition request is not lightly to be made. Jamaica learned that lesson the hard way when it dithered with Dudus. </p>
<p>It is one of two things. Either the attorney general incompetently declined to appeal, not appreciating the impact which recent legislative developments had on the case. </p>
<p>Or worse, he did so deliberately knowing that by closing off the route to prosecution in the US, Ferguson and Galbaransingh would never have to answer the bid-rigging charges anywhere. In other words, was the minister of justice the sacrificial lamb, he being the minister deemed the most politically dispensable? Three years on, we have not had any satisfactory answer to these questions. </p>
<p>The constitutionality of the repeal of Section 34 will be determined by the Privy Council later this year. Should they uphold the validity of Section 34, and Ferguson and Galbaransingh are allowed to get away scot free, somebody must be made to account.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 16 Aug 2015 05:44:54 +0000alexk106698 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas MendesEquip the protective serviceshttp://www2.guardian.co.tt/columnist/2015-08-09/equip-protective-services
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://www2.guardian.co.tt/sites/default/files/field/image/Douglas%20mendes_13.jpg" width="400" height="471" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I have criticised the police for dragging their feet in the investigation into the murder of my friend Dana Seetahal, and I must now congratulate them for bringing the case to a successful conclusion. By successful conclusion, I mean that they have amassed sufficient evidence to persuade the Director of Public Prosecutions that there is a proper case to put before a jury for its consideration.</p>
<p>I suppose they have provided somewhat of a partial explanation for their tardiness by way of their reference to the assistance which they sought and received for a foreign agency. I imagine that assistance was of an unspecified technical nature. Which is all well and good. </p>
<p>As well off as we might be as a small twin-island state, there will always be some cutting-edge scientific procedure or technique that we may not have, the equipment or human expertise, to carry out the necessary task. </p>
<p>There is no reason, however, why we should not be in a position to equip our protective services with the other more run-of-the-mill technical and scientific resources, both human and material, which would enable them to perform at the level deserving of a modern police force.</p>
<p>To detect crime and bring perpetrators to justice, police officers first and foremost must have a good working knowledge of the law. They must know what must ultimately be proved in a court of law to establish the guilt of an accused person. </p>
<p>That knowledge is essential if they are to be in a position to recognise relevant and probative evidence when they see it. That knowledge is also essential if they are to develop and pursue all pertinent lines of enquiry, to ask all the necessary questions, and to preserve all crucial physical evidence. </p>
<p>They will also have to be trained in the techniques of ensuring that all evidence that is gathered is admissible in a court of law. No doubt, the DPP and his department are there to assist when called upon to do so, but the DPP has his own full plate of matters to attend to and his office is not designed to be a substitute for sound investigative police work.</p>
<p>Police officers charged with detecting crime must also be trained in all the modern, scientific techniques, electronic and otherwise, which have become commonplace in any police force worth its salt. We should have our own departments with our own experts who can carry out DNA testing and analyse CCTV footage, along with the other more mundane tasks such as ballistic examinations, fingerprinting, and such like. </p>
<p>And all these departments must be sufficiently resourced, both human and material wise, to ensure a speedy turnaround time.</p>
<p>All of this means, of course, that we will have to ensure that our police officers are exposed to the necessary training, which no doubt can be obtained overseas. But, there is no reason why, between the University of the West indies and the University of T&amp;T, who together have faculties of law and sciences, the necessary forensic science programmes cannot be developed within a relatively-short period of time. </p>
<p>And by programmes, I mean full-fledged degrees, because the aim is to develop highly-trained specialists in crime detection and prosecution.</p>
<p>I am not talking about anything which is not practised in other countries. I have had the experience of interacting with young American detectives whose command of their investigations and the evidence needed to establish their cases was surpassed only by the district attorneys to whom they reported. The same is true of Scotland Yard detectives.</p>
<p>What would be new for us is how we integrate such highly-trained personnel in the existing police service structure.</p>
<p>At the moment, entry into the police service is normally at the lowest level of constable with room for promotion up the ranks as an officer distinguishes himself by his devotion to service and his successful pursuit of appropriate qualifications.</p>
<p>In the army, on the other hand, there is room for entry directly into the officer classes based upon academic qualifications or military training already received.</p>
<p>Likewise, with the necessary legislative adjustments, a cadre of highly-trained detectives can be created as an entry point into the service for people motivated and interested enough to successfully complete the degree programme. </p>
<p>There is a vast resource of talented young people out there, men and women, who would be attracted by the challenge and excitement of a dynamic career in detecting crime, but who might not be willing to first undergo the relative drudgery of the constable on the beat.</p>
<p>An army of police officers trained in the use of force, where reasonable, and the use of weaponry, is indispensable to the enforcement of the law and the apprehension of criminals. </p>
<p>Equally indispensable is an army within that army of people highly skilled in the techniques of evidence gathering and the preparation of a case for prosecution. </p>
<p>Maybe, if the police service had been provided with these tools long ago, the arrests made last week would have come that much sooner.</p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 09 Aug 2015 04:54:30 +0000alexk106399 at http://www2.guardian.co.ttDouglas Mendes